It worked perfect, Thanks Didi!
 

Its perfect. Thank you very much Didi. It worked like charm.

I ordered laser unit from
Product Details: SFHD4/BLACK CAP AUDIO SPARE LASER PICKUP FOR DVD M3 4.6 LASER

for £32 and bought a soldering iron for £15. Borrowed trox screw drivers from a friend, all it cost me was under £50.

Good pictures and explanation it really helped me.

Your welcome.
You're from switzerland? Propably it would have been easier for you to read my DIY in German:
Tausch der Lasereinheit beim BMW MK4-Navigationsrechner - BMW-Treff Forum

Another Quick Question Re: DVD Drive Replacement
 

I posted earlier, but I have a question or two. I have an 03 BMW 325xi with the MKIV unit. I'm going to replace the drive following the instructions at the beginning of the this post. My questions are:
- I assume the Drive comes with the laser?
- Besides having a functioning drive are there any upgrades with a new drive, i.e. more functions as my unit currently doesn't have any HVAC settings in the NAV display?
- Is there anything else I can easily upgrade and/or replace while replacing the Drive?
- I'm planning on installing a DICE Mediabridge, DUO and/or a Sirius receiver. Will a new DVD drive enable iPod and.or Sirius text on the nav screen or is that a something that can be accomplished another way or the text will automatically display. My concern is I've read about either MKIV or CD players needing to be ID3 or MP3 compatible (sorry for the wrong acronyms).

Thanks,

J

If you get the replacement loading tray/mechanism, yes.

No, Why would it? its a replacement laser mechanism, so not a hardware upgrade, you should get what you have now, AFAIK, HVAC setup and display on the screen was never an option for the mk4.

Only the OS, which is firmware that runs the nav computer.

OK cool.

No, why would it?? you are replacing like for like mate, so not upgrades as such.

You would need something that does this specifically, like the Intravee or a BM54 (a radio module from 2005) and/or a mp3/cd changer (again from 2005), they have text display, but these are separate systems.

This is the CD changer and bm54 mate, they need to be from 2005 and these features are then enabled, it has nothing to do with the mk4.

NP.

Thanks for the thorough reply.

my mk4 laser unit is almost dead (after speeding on a german autobahn :D...found scratches on a fresh dvd disc... ), barely read map cd-s, but dvd-s not at all...anyway, found that pn for dvd asembly unit that seems to fit mk4's (some ccc's also): 65 83 9 241 764. Price is quite fair: 85.84 euro so...if someone can confirm that this pn will fit mk4...please do...thank you!

That's the P/N I found, and getbmwparts.com has it for $100.25.

Thanks for confirmation Roy, so i will go for a new dvd assembly unit...

Hi everyone, I've just joined to thank you all for sharing your knowledge so generously.
I've been browsing the site for a while now but don't normally have the time to contribute. However as I have just gone through the process of repairing our Nav' system, with the help found here, I reckoned it was time I added my 2 cents :)

We have a mk4 dvd based nav' system in our 2004 320d. It's always been a bit tempremental when it came to ejecting discs, but that seems par for the course so I'd persevered - given that we've only updated it a couple of times.
The gps worked more often than not, occasionally we'd get 'no disc inserted' type messages but on the whole it worked when we needed it to. On our recent trip to the uk I picked up a really cheap 2011 map disc & well chuffed tried to eject the old disc. This time I couldn't get it out no matter how many ways I tried. In the end I removed the disc manually. When I plugged the drive back in I noticed it wouldn't take the new disc & to cut a long story short it turned out the little motor in the drive was kaput, along with the laser.

Now the local BMW dealers are normally the last place I'd try, but I noticed a part listed on the TIS system as an exchange drive unit. I asked the dealers and sure enough they took my old unit plus €91.00, so today I have the nav' system up and running again - I'm well chuffed. The part number if anyone's interested is 65 83 9 241 764.

One small point that may be of interest. When the parts guy gave me the new unit I looked it over & was concerned that it was labelled as a MK5, not the M3 4.6 I was expecting. He assured me it was the correct unit & he was right, no problems installing & the map came up first time! :)

Sorry to tell a short story long, but I wanted to pass on my sincere thanks for all your help, cheers Tony

This drive fits several cars. e46,65,63,53,70 etc.